Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Tragedy On Capitol Hill

Washington DC

In what might be framed as a tragedy of Shakespearian proportions in addition to a cruel twist of historical irony, yesterday, the anniversary of the Ides of March, marked the death of the last known American idea.

The incident occurred during a Congressional budget reform committee hearing, not long considered to be a hotbed for new ideas of any kind, where a junior senator (unknown) is believed to have considered taxing all citizens, whose income is reported in excess of one million dollars annually, to pay taxes equal in proportion to those in the middle and lower classes.

Conflicting eyewitness reports have stated that the idea's death came after Sarah Palin, former Governor of Alaska and 1984 National Bear-Baiting champion, present for the hearings, looked up from reading 101 More Ways To Address A Question Without Saying Anything: A Presidential Candidates Guide To Televised Debates, and appeared to want to say something; while another claim suggests the death came shortly after the Senate budget reform committee vetoed a motion that would have held American corporations responsible for paying taxes of any kind through fiscal 2031.

The official autopsy report filed for the idea shows definitively that the cause of death was complacency, an illness known to be fatal to any ideas if allowed to spread uncontrolled within a large enough population. The American Idea now joins the inauspicious club, along with the Dodo Bird and the Antillean Cave Rat, on the extinct species list.